Hi all, I had my liver resection last week (open surgery, 3 segments, about 25% in total), and I feel very lucky that I could and that it all went really well. My next step is long course chemoradiation on my primary tumour, but I understand I need to heal first.

So for those of you that have had liver surgery, how long until you could recommence therapy?

My Google-fu is failing me here and I can’t see much research around this. I’m keen to get back on the horse ASAP, but also don’t want to jeopardise healing.

I'm supposed to be having an open resection as well after 6 cycles and have no idea what to expect other than a 5-7 day hospital stay. I've only had the one surgery ever to remove my primary tumor but that was laparoscopic.

Hi Amy, so far it’s been much better than I expected. I went in last Wednesday and walked out yesterday, day 5. I had a fair bit of pain on waking up, but they hit that hard and has been manageable ever since. I did have some minor lung deflation and fluid build-up on the right side, which apparently happens during longer surgeries (esp after chemo), but breathing and coughing exercises have stayed on top of that. It’s really important to take enough painkillers so you can breathe properly and do your rehab exercises, otherwise you can end up with other un-fun complications. My hospital had a good ERAS program, and I also borrowed some tips from MSK’s website.

I was quite interested in the research around avoiding surgery-induced metastasis, so I’ve been doing what I can to prioritise painkillers which aren’t immunosuppressive, and a few other things. That has meant some interesting discussions with anaesthetists, but we got there!

The wound is large but quite tidy; I’ve got a check with GP tomorrow then with surgeon in 2 weeks. Appetite-wise I’ve had to adjust to smaller, frequent meals, with lots of protein to support liver regeneration and avoid losing much muscle mass. Now I’m just focusing on eating, resting and keeping moving to try to keep any issues at bay and get back to treatment!

A few weeks after the surgery, my husband’s big L shape incision opened up in two places and I had to pack in fresh gauze in those two open wounds twice daily to help healing. Both open wounds closed up nicely after a few weeks. Because of that, it was almost 10 weeks after his open liver surgery, he started first mop up chemo. It was originally scheduled for 6 weeks after surgery.

I had multiple open liver surgeries, as I recall it was about 6 weeks after surgery I resumed chemo/rad. The open ones definitely take longer to heal. I was in the hospital for about u days each liver surgery, the surgeries were a breeze compared to my colon surgery, but that was done fully open as well.

Last edited by Pyro on Tue Mar 12, 2019 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

I started mop up chemo 6 weeks after my Combo liver and rectal resection. I had done short course radiation just before surgery so not sure if they might wait longer to do post surgery radiation. Glad it went well and you are home!